Ficus tsjahela Burm. f.

ചേല

Family : MORACEAE

Synonym : No synonyms are recorded for this name.

Common Names : Aal, Chela, Karaal, Kara

Flowering Period : March-April

Distribution : Peninsular India and Sri Lanka

Habitat : Moist deciduous forests, also in the plains; often epiphytic and later becoming independent

Uses : The tree is often planted in order to provide shade for trees in coffee plantations. The brown wood is soft, in alternate concentric rings of narrow dark loose tissue and broader pale firmer tissue, the dark layers very conspicuous on a vertical section.

Key Characters :

Deciduous trees, often epiphytic, to 15 m high; aerial roots absent; bark surface dark brown, rough, blaze red, fibrous; exudation milky. Leaves simple, alternate spiral, stipulate; stipule 4-7 cm long, lateral, ovate-lanceolate, yellowish-red, foliaceous; petiole 3.5-10 cm long, slender, grooved above, glandular at apex below, glabrous, articulate; lamina 9-21 x 3.5-12 cm, oblong, elliptic-oblong or ovate-oblong, base rounded, subtruncate or cuneate, apex abruptly acuminate, margin entire; coriaceous, glabrous, glossy above; 3-5-ribbed from base, lateral nerves 7-14 pairs, pinnate, prominent, looped near the margin, intercostae reticulate, prominent. Flowers unisexual; inflorescence a syconia, sessile, in clusters of 2-6, on very short crowded tubercles in the axils of the leaves or most frequently at the scars of fallen leaves, depressed-globose, wall thin, orifice small, plane, internal bristles none; basal bracts 3, 2-2.5 x 3-3.5 mm, ovate, concave, persistent; flowers of 4 kinds; male flowers few, sessile, only near the mouth of receptacle, tepals 2-3, ovate, red, free or shortly jointed, shorter than the single stamen; anthers ovate; filaments about as long; female flowers sessile, tepals 3-4, red, lanceolate, free or shortly jointed; ovary superior, obovate, dark red; style elongate; stigma cylindric; gall flowers like female, sessile or with white pedicels. Syconium 5-6 mm across, yellowish-white and dotted, sessile rarely very shortly peduncled; achenes smooth.